Smart home with Alice. Yandex opens platform for all developers

We believe that in the future, people will manage their home with voice, not buttons. Therefore, today, Yandex is a platform of a smart home that will allow you to turn on the light, turn down the temperature on the air conditioner, switch the TV to another channel, or even make coffee - with the help of Alice.

The platform is open: both large manufacturers of smart devices and developers who automate their homes can connect to it. Today we will not retell the documentation, but we will tell Habr's readers about the architecture of our platform and show the devices that already support it.
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People have always sought to simplify life. In 1950, American engineer Emil Matias built more than two kilometers of wires and numerous electric motors into the walls of his house to control windows, doors, a radio receiver and other equipment using buttons. Only 25 years later, the company Pico Electronics will offer not to break the walls, but to use the existing electricity grid in the house not only to power the devices, but also to transfer control commands. Over time, alternatives appeared, but humanity relied on wires and switches mounted on the walls for decades to come.

Wireless Internet and smartphones have changed everything. It is not necessary to plan the number and location of all devices at the repair stage, if they work via Wi-Fi. The stationary remote can be replaced with a mobile phone or tablet. And the very idea of ​​a smart home has gone beyond the apartment: it is now possible to turn off a forgotten iron at home from a taxi. And everything would be fine, but there are two nuances.

Fragmentation and management

Different smart devices are rarely compatible with each other. If you have bulbs from different manufacturers in your apartment, it will be difficult to turn off all the lights with one team. If the coffee maker and the column are not compatible, then it will not be easy to make coffee and at the same time listen to the weather forecast. Such difficulties limit the choice of smart devices or even scare inexperienced users from the very idea of ​​a smart home.

Another problem is that most smart devices need to be managed using a mobile application. But it is not always convenient. For initial or fine tuning, yes, but try performing routine operations, such as adjusting the brightness of the lighting or the volume of the TV. To do this, you need to find the phone, unlock it, start the application, play with options, teach your children and relatives to all of this. Complicated.

Science fiction has long solved this problem for us. In the movies, no one controls the spacecraft or android using the phone - they just understand our language and know how to respond. Uniform, clear to any person interface.

For about five years we went to our own voice assistant, Alice . Now she lives in our applications. On the road, it can be accessed using Navigator, at home - through Yandex . Station and other smart speakers based on Yandex IO . She also has a lively and pleasant voice.

When we embarked on the idea of ​​a smart home, we set ourselves the task of solving both problems. To enable anyone, regardless of age and technical knowledge, simply say: "Alice, turn off the lights in the kitchen." And do not think about the compatibility of different lamps with each other. We believe that our new platform solves this problem.

Smart home Yandex

We had two choices. The first is to negotiate the compatibility of alien iron and our cloud. But then it would have to make changes to each device. Too time consuming and slow. Moreover, it would not allow connecting devices already available to users to the platform, forcing them to acquire new ones.

Another option is an open platform with cloud-2-cloud architecture. It’s enough for manufacturers to teach their cloud to work with the Yandex cloud using the intermediate Adapter API. It is simpler, faster and allows you to support devices that were sold earlier. We chose this option.

It is important to say that we do not replace the central hub of the manufacturer, do not try to replace the homebridge, and do not limit the development of alternative interfaces.

Explain by example. Station user says: "Alice, turn on the kettle." The Yandex cloud converts this phrase into a request and sends it to the manufacturer via the Adapter API. From there, the signal is sent to the kettle, which does not need to be able to work with different clouds.



For all this to work, Alice needs to know what devices are and how to work with them. To do this, the device developer must publish the special skill of the smart home through the Dialogs platform. This skill describes the supported devices in the platform format, and also contains the address at which the Adapter API is available.

Yandex application

You can manage your smart home with the help of different applications and devices with Alice, but you need the Yandex application to configure. In it you will find a list of manufacturers that already support our platform.

After the start activation, the user will be able to control the supported devices with voice: turn on / off, select a color or mode of operation, adjust the range settings. We also retained the ability to manage them manually - using the buttons in the application.


Smart home is not limited to simple commands. The platform allows you to manage multiple devices at once. For example, you can set up a script for waking up - and then, in response to the greeting “Alice, good morning,” she will put on fresh music at the Station, turn off the night light and turn on the kettle. For your scenarios, you can come up with any phrase and set of actions.


For ease of management, users can create groups and rooms. For example, you can combine several bulbs in the group "chandelier". And if there are several, then the phrase "Alice, turn off the chandelier in the kitchen" can only pay off the one in the kitchen.

Moreover, with the help of Alice you can control your smart home from anywhere. Suppose you like to be cool in your apartment. Just order on the way from work: "Alice, turn on the air conditioner."

First devices

Yandex Smart Home already works with dozens of Philips, Redmond, Rubetek, Samsung and Xiaomi devices. The list of supported devices from these manufacturers is regularly updated. Next in line are Bosch, Elari, Perenio IoT, SAPFIR and Z-Wave.

In addition to connecting partner devices, Yandex has released its own - a smart light bulb , a power outlet and a remote control . The light bulb changes the brightness and color of the lighting, using an outlet, you can remotely turn on and off the instruments connected to it, and the remote controls the equipment with an infrared port — for example, air conditioning and televisions.



We believe that there is a future for voice interfaces, and today we are taking a big step towards it. Now every user and developer of smart devices has the opportunity to influence the development of our platform. Any feedback and suggestions are welcome.

If you develop your smart devices and would like to manage them with the help of Alice, then we invite you to the documentation . Thank!